February 8, 2012

In Wisconsin, the union presence seemed wedded to a deep sense of civic identity, including connection to a long-standing state tradition of “progressive” innovation and peaceful reconciliation of differences among competing social and economic interests.

In Indiana, despite the fact that Indianapolis had once hosted more union headquarters than any other city in America, legislated reduction of the union presence triggered no visible sign of larger public hurt. That the union leaders themselves viewed the issue as “mere politics” betrays their own skepticism that worker rights can truly appeal to the public conscience...

That is, love/support/respect for unions needs to be firmly embedded in the culture of the place or you don't get the Wisconsin Effect. Noted. That means you can't suddenly whip up a political frenzy in response to one political move on the other side, no matter how drastic the move is.

Fink drifts off into a reverie. Here's his last paragraph before the one-liner "I’m dreaming, of course. This is Indiana.":

I could only think of how different was the determination of the 1968 Olympic athletes who raised a black-power salute at their official Olympic awards ceremony. If a similar sense of solidarity had been on display in Indianapolis, players from each team might have unfurled a “union” banner — Norma Rae-like — at halftime and carried it aloft to their respective locker rooms. Better yet, they would have handed off the emblems to Madonna, a long-established member of both the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America.

It's actually pretty pathetic when your dreams of deep embeddedness in the culture consist of showy gestures by sports/music/movie celebrities. Madonna, the union member? Why would organizations that boost Madonna resonate with Hoosiers and seem wedded to a deep sense of civic identity?

Face it, Fink: There's a price to be paid for locating liberalism in pop culture. It's not going to be deep. It's inherently shallow. Deeply shallow.

Yet, the popular reaction and public protest in Indiana were relatively mild compared to the seizure of the state capitol and subsequent wave of teacher strikes and extended mass protests centered last year in Madison.

Perhaps the Salon writer should understand there are more people in Madison dependent on state government than there are in Indianapolis.

By the way, the comments over there will make you much stupider if you read them.

I love how the meme of voting Republican is against your self interest persists despite the readily apparent failure of Obamanomics which the left has been waiting for for decades.

"Why the big difference between WI and IN in reaction to the legislation? A maturity gap?"

I honestly do think it is just tactics. They realized that fighting it in WI didn't work as expected. If the next round of recalls go their way, then maybe there will be lash outs. Also, the energy and money are spent in the old recalls/protests and OWS movement. There's only so much protest, then burn out sets in.

"The question is the answer. Hoosiers no longer feel compulsory union membership is an equal rights issue. Rather they have made it clear that compulsory union membership is an infringement on their right to work and earn all of their money"

Of course this crack intelligentsia's writing completely misses the inherent difference between a Public Sector Union's corrupt bargains with politicians they pay to elect, and true Labor Unions that must bargain with private businesses with separate ownership.

That is a shallow analysis indeed.

He only sees an assumption that Public Credit from legal access to taxpayers is the ONLY REALITY allowed in today's economy.

After all, how else can a Socialist Redistributionist System be expected to function?

"[P]layers from each team might have unfurled a 'union' banner — Norma Rae-like — at halftime and carried it aloft to their respective locker rooms. Better yet, they would have handed off the emblems to Madonna, a long-established member of both the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America."

This is great. The best union solidarity fantasy Fink can come up with not only involves celebrities, but celebrities acting out a scene from a movie.

If we're going to indulge in such fantasies, we should go whole hog! After these assorted stars pull a Norma Rae, Rocky Balboa could punch out the governor, and Harry Potter could fly in on his broom and turn Newt Gingrich into an actual Gingrich newt, and zombies could devour all of those nasty Republicans...

""(The) employer did not maintain a log of injuries and illnesses or provide fall protection and training for heights greater than four feet. The employer did not conduct protective hazard assessments or determine soil conditions when placing guy wires and anchors and finally, the employer failed to designate a competent person for construction of the load-bearing roof."

Maybe the lack of union outrage was the lack of union members. Most of them are in the Region where the steel industry is (was) and there just ain't many left.

I was an avid union supporter until after five years working as an outside contractor at US Steel and Bethlehem gave me a new perspective.

Then again less union workers was also due to technology changes. Back in the day an open hearth furnace would take 4 hours and almost 15 guys to make a heat. The basic oxygen furnace (BOF) could do it in 45 minutes with 4 guys.

I live in Indiana quite close to downtown Chicago, but decidedly not in Illinois.

Mitch Daniels is not a new governor. He's been here a 7 years already and in that time we have not seen our taxes increase (generally speaking) and our state is considered solvent. We're next to Illinois. We know what happens if you go down the jobs-crushing road. We don't want that. We see the billboards trying to lure business from Illinois (the billboards say something like "Illinnoyed by Higher Taxes?").

If My Man Mitch says that we really need to do something to stay competitive, we might not go right along with it, but we'll look into it and rationally consder whether it is so. We're grown-ups and a lot of us actually work in heavy industrial manufacturing environments that have unions.

The reason Indiana is different from Wisconsin is that Wisconsin has Madison, with the state's one major university co-located with the state capital to form a critical mass of academic and bureaucratic moonbattery. Michigan would be the same. In Indiana, the U of I, Purdue and Notre Dame are out-state and the capital is a working man's town. It's not the working man that opposes Walker; it's the leftist elite and their allies.

Conservatives, especially us rube varieties, are often accused of believing in historically whitewashed patriotic stories, but I don't think many of us believe John Wayne or Forrest Gump is the political answer to the government's fiscal incompetence. But again, we're not real sophisticated, don'tcha know.

The difference is academia, which is ironically a force for one-sided analysis, deficient of deep thought.

Remember, the large university is a depository for children who's parents are paying handsomely to get them out of the house where their unfunded demands and lack of contribution would have destroyed the home's finances even more thoroughly. College was the cheaper alternative and Madison welcomes them.

I suspect that the people of Indiana have more experience with unions affecting everyday life than the people of Wisconsin.

But that's just an impression.

Acquaintances of mine who live in Indianapolis noted a phone-calling push to get any union-connected-person into the capitol to protest. They also noted the absent-legislators problem, and heated rhetoric that seemed to deliberately misconstrue the effects of the legislation...

I was about to claim that Indianapolis doesn't have a large University nearby to provide an pool of idealistic young people to run the protest...but then I looked up Indiana University, and discovered that they have a large campus at IUPUI, in Indianapolis. So I don't know if that counts.

"... I looked up Indiana University, and discovered that they have a large campus at IUPUI, in Indianapolis. So I don't know if that counts..."

Not really. Iupui is predominantely a commuter campus and a lot if the students work so you're not going to get the typical lefty, sit around the coffee table and talk about Chomsky that you will at places like Madison or even Bloomington.

As been mentioned, UW and it's lefties and lefty traditions have a lot to do with it...add state government union workers, and a permanent local hippy population that is drawn to it.

Look back at the protests...remember the number of socialist groups there? These people work in coffee shops, restaurants, Union Cab, etc. they are not state workers, or union at all. Many live just blocks form the capitol.

Indy is nothing like this. Indy is more like Milwaukee if it was the capitol.

Interesting there isn't much said about the massive wage gap between actors and pro sports unions versus the guy at the Local 69 Pipefitters.

Interesting that there isn't much said about the massive wage gap within the actor/director or pro sports unions. The NFL minimum is $340K; the highest-paid player got $23M, or 67 times the minimum. And he didn't even play! I'd be ok with a teachers' union that allowed that kind of wage structure based on performance - say a $10,000 minimum for a glorified babysitter type, up to $670,000 for an all-star.

I can see the sentimental romanticism about labor unions, and how it persists in writers and other sensitive intellectuals.

But I don't see how you leap from there to a defense of "right to work," a concept that is part of the soft underbelly of union politics, e.g. that before labor can hope to coerce employers, first it must coerce workers. Organized labor is, at its heart, organized by thuggery, in one form or another.

I suppose from an evolutionary standpoint, passing a right to work law is a step up from a flaming poo bag on the front stoop of a worker who doesn't want to join, which was a step up from killing their pet, which was a step up from bashing their faces in with a chain.

So I guess we'll see if labor wants to go back down the evolutionary ladder in Indiana, or if it just dries up and blows away.

"Why would organizations that boost Madonna resonate with Hoosiers and seem wedded to a deep sense of civic identity?"

Actually, when Madonna filmed parts of "A League of Their Own" about 20 years ago in Evansville, IN, she called Evansville a "boring" town', which led to efforts to declare Evansville a "Madonna-free" zone.

"... Interesting that there isn't much said about the massive wage gap within the actor/director or pro sports unions. The NFL minimum is $340K; the highest-paid player got $23M, or 67 times the minimum..."

Well the issue is both the lowest and highest paid player fall into the greedy 1%. At that point it is like arguing over the wealth difference of Gates and Buffett.

"... Actually, when Madonna filmed parts of "A League of Their Own" about 20 years ago in Evansville, IN, she called Evansville a "boring" town', which led to efforts to declare Evansville a "Madonna-free" zone..."

It's safe to assume the celebrity set feels that way about most of flyover country.

The Screen Actors' Guild and the Directors' Guild aren't there to "help" their members except to keep others out.

There are many people who would gladly act, write, direct, etc., for no money at all (like those unpaid internships on another thread) just for the opportunity to work in their dream profession or to maybe, just maybe, get famous and then bring in the big bucks.

Nah, not really. Lansing, MI is much smaller and less influential in MI than Madison is in WI. Madison is 230K people in a state of 5 1/2 million. Lansing is half as big (115K) in a state almost twice that size (10 million). Michigan State isn't even in Lansing (it's in East Lansing) and anyway the state's flagship campus (and hipster liberal enclave) is 60 miles away in Ann Arbor (where, BTW, the current Republican governor still lives--he didn't move to Lansing when elected).

Yes, a good inference is that Walker would be better off going for the Right to Work law. He'd still have had a fight, but it's a better fight.

Right to Work is a lot simpler concept to explain, and much harder for the union bosses to complain about. The best argument they can marshal is to claim (falsely) that they're "forced" to represent objectors, so the objectors should pay.

(This is false two ways; it is a little known fact that a union can seek a members-only contract, rather than seek to be the bargaining agent for everyone. They aren't forced, they choose to seek exclusive rep privileges because it's hardly a burden, it's a source of power.)

Right to Work is a smarter fight in other ways. As someone said, it goes to the heart of union power, by ending the automatic pipeline of money. Pass a Right to Work law, and then the other things you want are less difficult to pursue. And if you can't do Right to Work, you won't be able to do the other stuff. Example? Ohio.

Other differences: Indiana has no recall nor referendum, so the union bosses must defeat this the old-fashioned way; defeat and replace incumbents. Not impossible, but much harder.

Recall is absolutely idiotic. You want to recall an elected official? That's what the next election is for.

Referendum is an example of a good-sounding dumb idea. The mess called California is a good example of what's wrong with legislating at the ballot box.

The thing about a referendum is that all the "no" position has to do is sow doubt. Ohio has the referendum process, and a Right to Work law, if passed, would next go to the ballot. A fear-mongering campaign that succeeds doesn't prove folks are against Right to Work; it proves the "nos" sowed just enough doubt.

Finally, Gov. Daniels did a flip-flop. A year ago, he didn't care about Right to Work; and suddenly his presidential fortunes deflated. I think he soon realized that helping to sink Right to Work the year before sunk him.

"The Screen Actors' Guild and the Directors' Guild aren't there to "help" their members except to keep others out."

Isn't that the nature of guilds opposed to unions?

I suppose I'm not clever enough to understand the difference. Perhaps the difference is one of time and space: guilds are so Middle-Ages while unions are modern. Then too, my understanding associates guilds with some sort of skill level. While one must have some skill to be a union carpenter, plenty of other unions are not necessarily about skill and quality control of members. Both are definitely about erecting barriers to entry to minimize competition and raise wages for the lucky members.

As for "Right-to-Work" and Wisconsin, once again the public sector employees have it better. They have a right to employment without joining the union, while private sector employees must either join and pay dues, or not join and pay dues.

"In Wisconsin, the union presence seemed wedded to a deep sense of civic identity, including connection to a long-standing state tradition of “progressive” innovation and peaceful reconciliation of differences among competing social and economic interests."

This guy's an idiot. Wisconsin progs have a tradition of political militancy when facing competing interests.

The unions gave it their best shot and wound up looking like out of touch morons.

Once Indiana saw that they were toothless, it was easy to pass RTW. What are the unions going to do about it?

Pretty much nothing, as we see.

Thanks Wisconsin for leading the way. Thanks also (seriously!) To all the demonstrators. They gave a perfect illustration of Shakespeare:

[The WI demonstrators are] but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.